TRAVELS IN THE CALIFORNIA S. 
83 
give us air !” were heard at intervals, till the noise of open¬ 
ing day drowned these agonizing entreaties. 
On the morning of the twenty-first, the American was 
retused any intercourse with the prisoners. During the fore¬ 
noon, therefore, he walked many times past the grates of the 
several buildings; stopped often and encouraged the in¬ 
mates by his mien to hope on still. Mr. Larkin had fed 
them liberally in the morning, and furnished every cell with 
an abundant supply of water. Yet they suffered greatly ! 
They looked on damp prison walls, and dragged chains at 
their wrists and ancles ! They stood or sat or lay on 
poached mud! They saw in the future every image of coming 
evil! Suffocation, the pangs of death one at a time, com¬ 
ing slowly by day and among the sleepless moments of the 
long and hot night—life pendent on the mercy of a Califor¬ 
nian Spaniard. These constituted heir condition. 
About noon of the 21st, a half-breed Spaniard rode into town 
at full speed and held a hurried conversation with the guard 
around the prison, and then entered the house of the Governor. 
A few moments having elapsed he reappeared and went to the 
quarters of Jose Castro. A moment more Castro came upon 
the green, issued a hasty order to Corporal Pinto, and re¬ 
paired to the Governor. The horseman, meantime, galloped 
rapidly to the Castello. Immediately his Excellentissimo ap¬ 
peared on the balcony, and ordered the drums to beat to arms ! 
Soon there was hot haste in every dwelling. Women ran 
to the windows and doors ; children pulled at their mothers’ 
skirts, and asked what had happened. The men ran to the 
public green, took their stations in the ranks, and looked al¬ 
ternately towards the hills and the prisons. The dogs bark¬ 
ed and trotted about in apparent wonder ; the goats bleated 
and stamped their feet; and the horses neighed and ran to 
the sea-side, and the cattle raised head and tail and ran to¬ 
gether ! In fact, such a time of locomotion had not for many 
a day been seen in Monterey. In order to explain this phe¬ 
nomenon, it will be necessary for me to show its cause. 
